European Banking Monitor: European Financial Swaps Decline on the Summit’s Disappointment

Takeaway:Nothing tangible came from last week’s EU Summit, however European bank swaps priced less risk on the week.

Below are key European banking risk monitors, which are included as part of Josh Steiner and the Financial team's "Monday Morning Risk Monitor". If you'd like to receive the work of the Financials team or request a trial please email .

Key Takeaways:

* European bank CDS tightened across the board last week with only 1 out of the 37 reference entities we track widening. This is a bit surprising considering that the EU Summit failed to produce any tangible solutions once again. But Sovereign swaps around the globe too moved sharply lower, mirroring the move in bank swaps.

On OMTs Reporting: The ECB has stated that Aggregate Outright Monetary Transaction holdings and their market values will be published on a weekly basis and the average duration of Outright Monetary Transaction holdings and the breakdown by country will take place on a monthly basis. There is no indication that the OMTs has been initiated to date.

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If you’d like to discuss recent developments in Europe, from the political to financial to social, please let me know and we can set up a call.

Matthew Hedrick

Senior Analyst

(o)

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European Financials CDS Monitor – Europe was not as good, only 36 of 37 reference entities improved. Spanish banks showed some of the sharpest improvement.

Euribor-OIS spread – The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 1 bp to 11 bps. The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States. Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal. By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending. Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk..

ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility – The amounts drawn under this facility have been steadily declining since July 2012. The ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility measures banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB. Taken in conjunction with excess reserves, the ECB deposit facility measures excess liquidity in the Euro banking system. An increase in this metric shows that banks are borrowing from the ECB. In other words, the deposit facility measures one element of the ECB response to the crisis.

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10/22/12 09:25 AM EDT

The Decline Line

THE DECLINE LINE

CLIENT TALKING POINTS

THE DECLINE LINE

A lot of people weren’t expecting the market to take a tumble like it did on Friday - it’s been awhile since something like that happened, right? June 25th was the last time the S&P 500 fell more than -1.5% in one day. Now with the VIX hovering around 15 and volumes remaining depressed, people are wondering how the market could decline like it did last week. The fact of the matter is that our #EarningsSlowing theme continues to strengthen. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. You’re seeing a lot of corporations with peak earnings offering lower guidance for 2013, including the big boys like Caterpillar (CAT) and FedEx (FDX).

For the bulls out there: caveat emptor.

HERE COMES THE BOOM

We are in the midst of a commodity boom that’s been raging on for the past decade courtesy of Ben Bernanke’s policies to inflate at the Federal Reserve. You know how it works by now: print money, drive up commodity prices. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and Bernanke is running out of ammunition. Commodities will soon come down in price and 2013 is looking like a ripe time for this to happen. Companies who rely heavily on inflated commodity prices to drive revenue and earnings will suffer greatly, so keep that in mind when you see them reporting guidance going forward.

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ASSET ALLOCATION

Cash: DOWN

U.S. Equities: Flat

Int'l Equities: Flat

Commodities: Flat

Fixed Income: UP

Int'l Currencies: Flat

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TOP LONG IDEAS

BRINKER INTL (EAT)

Remains our top long in casual dining as new sales layers (pizza) and strong-performing remodels (~5% comps) should maintain sales momentum. The company is continuing to enhance returns for shareholders through share buybacks . The stock trades at a discount to DIN (7.7x vs 9.3x EV/EBITDA) and in line with the group at 7.3x.

TRADE: LONG

TREND: LONG

TAIL: LONG

PACCAR (PCAR)

Emissions regulations in the US focusing on greenhouse gases should end the disruptive pre-buy cycle and allow PCAR to improve margins. Improved capacity utilization, truck fleet aging, and less volatile used truck prices all should support higher long-run profitability. In the near-term, Paccar may benefit from engine certification issues at Navistar, allowing it to gain market share. Longer-term, Paccar enjos a strong position in a structurally advantaged industry and an attractive valuation.

TRADE: LONG

TREND: LONG

TAIL: LONG

HCA HOLDINGS (HCA)

While political and reimbursement risk will remain near-term concerns, on the fundamental side we continue to expect accelerating outpatient growth alongside further strength in pricing as acuity improves thru 1Q13. Flu trends may provide an incremental benefit on the quarter and our expectation for a birth recovery should support patient surgery growth over the intermediate term. Supply costs should remain a source of topline & earnings upside going forward.

TRADE: NEUTRAL

TREND: LONG

TAIL: LONG

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THREE FOR THE ROAD

TWEET OF THE DAY

“ $CAT basically admitting that they are f'd in China w/o more stimulus..#nice” -@HedgeyeENERGY

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” -George F. Will

STAT OF THE DAY

The December to March "Risk On" base in Spanish bond yields was 5.15%; they’re now over 5.40%.

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10/22/12 08:25 AM EDT

CHART OF THE DAY: David and Goliath

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David and Goliath

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”

-Booker T. Washington

This weekend one of my colleagues circulated an article written by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker titled, “How David Beats Goliath”. The gist of the article is that there are actually advantages to being the “David”, or the underdog, in an industry, game, or confrontation. On a basic level, this often occurs because the underdog does not subscribe to the same norms as his or her opponent. In fact, to succeed “David” has to be quicker, more tireless, and, most importantly, more innovative.

In the article, Gladwell uses basketball as a case study to highlight his point. He cites example after example of basketball teams that have beaten more talented teams by aggressively utilizing the full court press. In effect, instead of letting more talented opponents bring the ball down the court and set up their plays, the teams Gladwell highlights aggressively went after their opponents in their own end.

In top level basketball such as the NCAA or NBA, the full-court press is rarely used despite the evidence that it enables those teams with lower talent levels to be much more competitive. One of the more successful basketball coaches to use the full court press is Rick Pitino. Despite struggling as a coach in the NBA, Pitino has had a steller NCAA record of 616 wins and 227 losses, in part due to his use of the full-court press.

So, why don’t more coaches adopt Pitino’s strategy? Well, many actually do reach out to Pitino to come watch his practices and learn from him, but as Gladwell writes:

“The coaches who came to Louisville sat in the stands and watched that ceaseless activity and despaired. The prospect of playing by David’s rules was too daunting. They would rather lose.”

Being an underdog is not easy work.

On Friday the SP500 closed down -1.7% and no doubt many stock market operators felt like underdogs. The last time we had a sell-off in that area code was June 25th when the SP500 was down -1.6%. At a VIX of 15-ish, which is where Friday started, no one was expecting an almost two percent declining in equities, especially when the market is so “cheap”.

One of the key negative catalysts on Friday was #EarningsSlowing – one of our key Q4 investment themes. As is usual when complacency sets in, negative events occur when they are least expected to happen. On Thursday this occurred with Google’s (GOOG) earnings being released earlier than expected and being worse than expected. Although, to be fair, revenue was still up 45% year-over-year, but in the investment business expectations, as always, are the root of all heartache.

Earnings from Google on Thursday were then compounded on Friday with news from Asia that some of Apple’s (AAPL) supply chain was looking to take some margin back from the Cupertino giant. As reported in the Korea Times this morning, Samsung Display has now said that they will terminate its contract with Apple as Samsung is unable to supply its flat-screens at “high discounts”.

On the earnings front this morning one of our Industrials team’s favorite short ideas, Caterpillar (CAT), has come out with disappointing numbers and guidance. According to CAT:

“Cat dealers have lowered order rates to well below end-user demand … Production across much of the company has been lowered, resulting in temporary shutdowns and layoffs.”

The simple thesis for CAT is that next year’s earnings will be lower than this year’s earnings. While many companies may continue to grow earnings in 2013, even if CAT isn’t one of them, a bigger issue goes back to the point of expectations. In the Chart of the Day we highlight the view of margin expansion that is baked into consensus expectations headed into 2013. Needless to say, we do not see an acceleration in margin expansion in an environment where revenue is barely growing at 2% year-over-year in aggregate for the SP500.

Interestingly, CAT also plays into our second key quarterly theme, which we have called Bubble #3. A key tenet of this thesis is that the decade long boom we have seen in commodities driven by loose monetary policy is getting close to the last inning. This is most directly supported by slowing economic growth in China, which just printed one of its worse GDP numbers since the Great Recession.

Coincident with this commodity boom has been mining companies investing well beyond depreciation and amortization for more than a decade. This, too, will mean revert as we are seeing with CAT’s guidance this morning. We are expecting to see more follow through on this theme as more of the mining complex reports in the coming weeks.

Stepping away from earnings, the most significant global macro catalyst in the short term is clearly the November 6th election in the United States. Currently, the race has no underdog. The two candidates are virtually tied in national polls, they are virtually tied in the elector college, and in terms of favorability ratings they are, as well, virtually tied. Intrade still has Obama with a slight edge, but that too may well be fleeting.

In terms of insight into the election outcome, we will be joined this Wednesday at 1pm for a call with Professor Ken Bickers from the University of Colorado. He has crafted an interesting analysis based on state-by-state election economic situations that, according to his analysis, suggest that Romney may win in a run-away. Clearly, this is a non-consensus view. We hope you can join us for the call and will circulate the dial-in to institutional subscribers later this week.

Takeaway:Bank swaps and sovereign swaps moved in tandem, tightening considerably last week while Chinese steel continues to show signs of weakness.

Key Takeaways

* American bank default swaps have tightened significantly. The improvement seems to be the result of ongoing improvement in housing as well as reasonably strong earnings.

* European bank CDS also tightened across the board last week with only 1 out of the 37 reference entities we track widening. This is a bit surprising considering that the EU Summit failed to produce any tangible solutions once again.

* Sovereign swaps around the globe moved sharply lower, mirroring the move in bank swaps.

* Steel prices in China have generally been trending lower since August of last year. Prices have fallen 13% over the last six months but are up 1.3% MoM.

1. American Financial CDS – A clean sweep. Swaps tightened for all the American financial reference entities we track. Considering the mixed reaction to earnings in the space, it's a notable divergence.

Tightened the most WoW: AXP, MS, BAC

Tightened the least WoW: WFC, COF, GS

Tightened the most MoM: RDN, HIG, MS

Widened the most MoM: MBI, WFC, LNC

2. European Financial CDS – Europe was not as good, only 36 of 37 reference entities improved. Spanish banks showed some of the sharpest improvement.

3. Asian Financial CDS– Asia took its cues from the U.S. and EU. Bank swaps in China and India were tighter WoW. Japanese banks were also generally tighter.

4. Sovereign CDS – Sovereign default swaps around the world moved sharply lower, with an average decline of 22.8%. Notable call outs include German sovereign swaps, which tightened by 30.4% (-15 bps to 34 bps) and Spanish sovereign swaps, which tightened by 81 bps to 273 bps.

9. Euribor-OIS spread –The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 1 bp to 11 bps. The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States. Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal. By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending. Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk.

10. ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility – The amounts drawn under this facility have been steadily declining since July 2012. The ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility measures banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB. Taken in conjunction with excess reserves, the ECB deposit facility measures excess liquidity in the Euro banking system. An increase in this metric shows that banks are borrowing from the ECB. In other words, the deposit facility measures one element of the ECB response to the crisis.

11. Markit MCDX Index Monitor –Spreads tightened 6 bps, ending the week at 132 bps versus 138 bps in the prior week. The Markit MCDX is a measure of municipal credit default swaps. We believe this index is a useful indicator of pressure in state and local governments. Markit publishes index values daily on six 5-year tenor baskets including 50 reference entities each. Each basket includes a diversified pool of revenue and GO bonds from a broad array of states. We track the 16-V1.

12. Chinese Steel – Steel prices in China fell 1.6% last week, or 61 yuan/ton, to 3745 yuan/ton. Over the last six months, Chinese construction steel prices have fallen ~13%.This index is reflecting significant weakness in China's construction market.Chinese steel rebar prices have been generally moving lower since August of last year. We use Chinese steel rebar prices to gauge Chinese construction activity, and, by extension, the health of the Chinese economy.

NYSE Margin debt rose to $287 billion in August from $278 billion in July. It's interesting to note that this most recent print brings the two series back into convergence. We like to to look at margin debt levels as a broad contrarian sentiment indicator. For reference, our approach is to look at margin debt levels in standard deviation terms over the period 1. Our analysis finds that when margin debt gets to +1.5 standard deviations or greater, as it did in April of 2011, it has historically been a signal of significant risk in the equity market. The preceding two instances were followed by the equity market losing roughly half its value over the following 24-36 months. Overall this setup represents a long-term headwind for the market. One limitation of this series is that it is reported on a lag. The chart shows data through August.

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Robert Belsky

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10/22/12 08:01 AM EDT

Broken America?

This note was originally published
at 8am on October 08, 2012 for Hedgeye subscribers.

“America feels broken.”

-Chris Hayes

That about sums it up. That’s the opening line to what I’ve found to be a surprisingly thought provoking book just published by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Twilight of The Elites. Hayes is not Chris Matthews. He’s half his age, and he has much better hair.

Hays also has a much more balanced approached in attempting to explain the sometimes un-explainable - the zeitgeist of the US Political Economy: “Over the course of the last decade, a nation accustomed to greatness and progress has had to reconcile itself to an economy that seems to be lurching backwards.” (page 1)

That’s why people got so fired up about the Jack Welch suggestion about the US jobs report on Friday. Conspiracy theories are no longer conspiracy theories when they are proven to be true. The truth is that we have both a failed Keynesian spending jobless recovery and money printing induced inflation. Any government “report” suggesting otherwise only perpetuates The People’s distrust.

The other thing I like about Hayes is that he actually thinks about what I attempt to explain every morning from a completely different perspective. He grew up in the Bronx and was a Philosophy major at Brown. In Chapter 1 of his book he introduces the framework of “Insurrectionists and Institutionalists.” I am one of the former, and appreciate his making up a word for those I criticize as the latter.

“Whatever my own insurrectionist sympathies – and they are considerable – I am also stalked by the fear that the status quo, in which discredited elites and institutions retain their power, can just as easily produce destructive and antisocial impulses as it can spur transformation and reform… when people come to view all formal authority as fraudulent, good governance becomes impossible.”

Again, that’s why what Welch said is still driving the “institutionalist” media batty again this morning – but they are missing the point. Hayes nails it, calling this a “Crisis of Authority”… and the longer it “persists, the more it runs the risk of metastasizing into something that could threaten what we cherish most about American life: our ability to self-correct.” (page 29)

Back to the Global Macro Grind…

It’s not my job to be a Bull, Bear, Republican or a Democrat. My job is to empathize with both sides of the debate, and attempt to probability-weight which way the crowd will lean in and around those polarized perspectives. If you listen to both sides closely enough, you can actually hear that both make some great points.

Last week, the US Dollar was down for the 1st week in 3, so stocks and commodities were up. That’s not a political point. That’s just what’s happening today in markets. They are completely correlated to currency moves. Hugo Chavez has nailed this inasmuch as both Bush and Obama did – he devalued his currency, stocks ripped another +31% higher last week to +245% YTD, and boom – re-election!

Even if you don’t have an education, you probably get the math – if I devalue what’s in your pocket, you can buy less of what you need with what’s left in your pocket. From 1920’s Germany to Charles de Gaulle in France, Policies to Inflate have been around for a lot longer than polarized journalists attempting to spin easy money any other way.

But what do we do when all that asset price inflation deflates?

We get Bernanke to call it what 21% of people in France suffer from (depression)

We beg and plea for more bailout policies to re-flate

We say “it’s different this time”, just so we can feel better about it

All the while, economic gravity has proven to bite both Democrat and Republican politicians in the behind. Politicians have never been able to “smooth” either the Global Growth or US #EarningsSlowing cycles – and this morning, we have to once again deal with both.

At 130PM EST, Daryl Jones and I will host our Q4 2012 Global Macro Themes Conference Call (email Sales@Hedgeye.com for access) where we’ll take a closer look at the following intermediate-term TREND to longer-term TAIL risks:

Earnings Slowing – what does it mean when corporate margins are coming off all-time peaks?

Bubble #3 – what do Bernanke Bubbles (Commodities) do now that he’s out of communication bullets?

Keynesian Cliff – what happens if the USA bonks the Debt Ceiling before The Cliff?

Sadly, some of these themes are political. That’s a direct function of our governing elite fundamentally believing that they are the solution (rather than the cause) to our economic problems.

Both Neil Barofsky (Democrat author of Bailout) and Sheila Bair (Republican ex-Chairperson of the FDIC) have recently called the likes of Timmy Geithner out in their tell-all books about the reality of our situation. The problem with government is government itself.

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